Punished (Calavera Hotels #1)

Chapter Four Mireya

I was the first to show up at the bar on Thursday. It was a weekly tradition. Thalia, Alma, and I met up for drinks every Thursday in the hotel’s bar. Alma and I shared an apartment in downtown Houston, but I barely saw her with school and work. We met during my first year of college, when Alma thought she was going to be a preschool teacher but couldn’t handle the amount of boogers she had to clean. She decided to take some time off of school to figure it out, and now works as a housekeeper full time for Calavera Hotels.

Thalia was best described as a Mexican Goth Barbie. A name Alma gave her after the first time they met. Where Alma was sunshine and rainbows, Thalia was a modern day Wednesday Addams in heels with cartel ties. She held the title of Chief Financial Officer, but over the years, Alma and I noticed she held a much higher position as Patricio’s protégé. I knew her decision to keep that part of her life private was also how she protected us.

She was the one who introduced me to Dr. Aguilar. He and I quickly connected, and it wasn’t too long before he would call me to assist him. He or Thalia would call me to scenes where men were shot down, half dead or injured. Before I knew it, I became his permanent assistant, and somehow, my hours and pay miraculously increased at the hotel. I did my best not to ask too many questions or get myself too involved. I needed the extra money to pay for school and pay off the credit card debt I had acquired trying to survive.

I was unsure how Adrian might fit into all of this. I knew he had always been a hard worker. I look down at the bracelet he had given me when we were younger. He worked his ass off that summer mowing lawns just so he could give it to me on my birthday. I was afraid to think of what would happen when he saw me again.

I order a round of shots and top shelf margaritas. Mango flavor for me, blackberry for Thalia, and watermelon for Alma.

“Damn bitch, you starting early?” Alma says as she squeezes into the booth I reserved for the three of us. She is still in her maid uniform, her curly brown hair pulled up in a bun. She looks exhausted, but still offers me a smile. She has natural beauty with her flawless skin. It makes sense, since she has an hour-long bedtime routine and enough discipline to avoid dairy.

We order our usual appetizers and wait for Thalia. Alma pulls out bottles of Tajin and Chamoy that she carries in her purse and preps our drinks. We always tell her she would make a good bartender, but she says the crowd is too intimidating. She loves her job as a maid because she can listen to her fairy smut books and be in her own world while cleaning and reorganizing rooms. Enrique adores her because she pays so much attention to detail.

Thalia walks in finally, and she is ready to make a statement, as always. She is wearing black dress pants with a matching black turtleneck tank top and Louboutin heels. Her arms are toned and covered in tattoos. Black matte lipstick, her signature touch.

“Hey, putas!” she says and makes her way to the table. “You have no fucking idea how much I need this.”

She slouches into the booth and grabs her drink. We all clink glasses and start the night. This was the only time we were guaranteed a bit of relief from work, and life. We would often sit in this corner booth, venting our weekly struggles, while ending the night making fools of ourselves as we sang drunk karaoke. There was not one Vicente Fernandez song that was not victimized by us by the end of the night.

We have been sitting in the corner booth for a few hours when Olivia Consuelo joins us. She runs the restaurant and shares a penthouse upstairs with Thalia and her two kids, Lucia and Luca. Even though she is Thalia’s aunt, they act more like sisters, only a few years separating them in age. We order our third round of shots as Alma fills us in on all the chisme going on with the maids, which was better than any novela, since Alma is a natural at acting and doing impressions. Olivia declines the shot we offer her and sneaks out to put the kids to bed.

Thalia lets us in on her newest endeavors of her dating life. Last week being another failed Tinder match with a guy, who thought it would be funny to do an Austin Powers impression during foreplay. Alma spits out her drink as Thalia mocks the guy, lowering her voice to say, “How does it feel, baby,” after she requested he go lower.

Usually I would just listen to them both vent. Really my life wasn’t ever exciting enough to talk about. Thalia had enough sex for both Alma and I. I hadn’t gone on a date in years. Thalia had bought me a vibrator when I told her I hadn’t had sex since Bryan, and Alma had tried to set me up on double dates. One time, she even tried setting me up with a woman from her book club, just because all her other attempts with men failed.

The truth is, I just don’t feel interested in it much anymore. Sometimes on my days off, I feel too tired to even do anything but lie in bed. And I only get over these depressive states by throwing myself into work. I think Dr. Aguilar sees this and often calls me to help him just to keep me busy.

I could easily marry Dr. Aguilar, since he is the only man I feel comfortable even being alone around since breaking up with Bryan. I even asked Thalia if he had a girlfriend once, and she busted up laughing, saying he was gayer than Walter Mercado riding a rainbow unicorn while touring with Elton John. Just my luck.

I don’t want to tell the girls about how fucked up I’ve been this week since finding out about Bryan and Adrian in the same day. I trust them both not to judge me, but there is still an insecure part of me that is convinced our friendship isn’t real. I have this fear that if they saw the real me–the needy, weak part of me–that they would dip out like everyone else in my life. But liquid courage be damned, I decide to bring it up.

“I think the universe hates me,” I say, interrupting Alma trying to convince Thalia to read one of her books. They both look over at me. I clear my throat. “Monday, I had to talk to Bryan and Diana’s wedding planner. Their engagement party is going to be here.” I hold up the shot Olivia left and take it down while Alma gasps.

“Are you serious?”

They both know about my fucked-up relationship with Bryan. After all my fake friends had abandoned me at Saint Rita’s, I was all alone. It wasn’t until my senior year, when Thalia moved back from California, that she befriended me and helped me to heal with all her witchy self-love rituals. I would always be grateful to her for that. But I never mentioned Adrian during all that. I honestly never thought we’d cross paths again.

“It gets worse.” I turn to face Thalia.

“Your cousin, Adrian, who is also my ex-boyfriend, is coming out of prison and moving into the vacant penthouse.”

Thalia’s eyes widen before she lets out a drunk laugh.

“Adrian is not my cousin.” She’s still laughing, apparently already intoxicated, as she lets out the next part. “He’s my half-brother.”

Alma gasps again. I swear her dramatic effects put the entire cast of La Rosa de Guadalupe to shame.

“Wait. Shut up! You have a half-brother and never told us about him?” She points at Thalia and then to me. “And you dated him?”

She crosses herself like a nun and finishes her margarita. I am still silent as I try to understand. Thalia and Adrian are brother and sister?

“I know your cousins are hot as hell, so I can only imagine what your brother looks like,” Alma says, and I, for some reason, shoot her a dirty look.

“Sorry. So, who is older?” I ask Thalia, trying to piece this part of Adrian’s life together. He never told me about any of this. “I think I’m like 6 months older,” Thalia says.

“So, you’re basically like Irish twins,” Alma says.

“Um, no. And seriously, this conversation is a buzzkill. Can we stop talking about him? I’m sorry, Mireya. Sober me will help you through all this, I swear, but I prefer not to think of my father and his thousands of estranged children right now. Childhood trauma and whatnot.”

I feel bad for even bringing it up. My brain goes to creating fake scenarios where both girls unfriend me, and I wash the toxic thoughts down with the remainder of my margarita. I’m grateful when Alma leads us to the karaoke machine. We order more drinks before we ruin everyone’s night with our version of “Por Tu Maldito Amor”.